Call for blame to be laid over NZ quake building

NEW Zealand will not be able to move on from the Canterbury Television building tragedy until individuals are held to account for its collapse, the Building and Construction Minister, Maurice Williamson, says.

NEW Zealand will not be able to move on from the Canterbury Television building tragedy until individuals are held to account for its collapse, the Building and Construction Minister, Maurice Williamson, says.

The final report by the Canterbury earthquakes royal commission, issued on Monday, concluded that the building, which collapsed during the February 2011 earthquake killing 115 people, had serious deficiencies in its design and construction.

''My view on this is that you can't have 115 people lose their lives in a tragedy like this and somebody not be held to account,'' Mr Williamson told the TV3 channel.

''It's not for me as the minister of building and construction to do that liability and accountability thing, but we've put all this information in the hands of the police. They will make a determination.''

He had asked his officials to explore other avenues for holding individuals to account.

''I think we will never be able to move on from this until some accountability is sheeted home to individuals,'' he said.

The Prime Minister, John Key, described the royal commission's report into the CTV building's collapse as ''grim and sobering reading''.

The final report found the CTV building did not meet construction standards, was designed by an engineer out of his depth and overseen by a boss who should have known better.

It should not have been given resource consent in 1986 as it did not meet the building code.

The three council staff who inspected the building after the September 2010 earthquake, none of whom were engineers, gave the building a green sticker, which allowed re-entry.

The commission held hearings for eight weeks and heard from more than 80 witnesses.

The mayor of Christchurch, Bob Parker, said he had not fully digested the report, and nor had his legal team.

But he noted the CTV building was signed off ''almost three decades ago'' under a different council, covering a different geographic area and smaller city.

Mr Williamson said changes had already been made to the building code to strengthen seismic standards, and proposals had been announced last week to evaluate the entire commercial building stock in New Zealand to make sure it met important building standards.

The extra $1 billion cost was manageable, given what was at stake, Mr Williamson said. He was confident the policing and compliance regime had already been significantly strengthened since the CTV construction.

''We think we've changed that regime dramatically already.

''It used to be that councils had a pretty loose regime for doing building consents. We've recently gone through a proper accreditation for what we call building certification authorities.

''Of course, you can never guarantee the checks and balances in there. If they're not done legally, if someone circumvents it, it's always difficult. We're pretty confident that won't happen.''